May Muthuri
Involve farmers in fight against climate change
A regional consultation on agro forestry on Thursday underscored the need for enabling policies to ensure that farmers get technology and financial incentives to integrate trees and shrubs on farmland for developing resilience to climate change. “India has the most progressive agro forestry policy in the world,’’ Director-General of Kenya-headquartered ICRAF (World Agro forestry Centre) […] Continue Reading
Why are Vietnamese farmers not planting trees amid annual crops?
In Ho Ho sub-watershed in north-central Viet Nam, farmers do not deploy systems that mix trees and annual crops, except in their home gardens. In the eyes of the farmers, it is not possible to cultivate different plants together outside of a home garden. Certainly, they say, trees cannot be planted between annual crops. These […] Continue Reading
10 priorities for making African smallholder farming work under climate change
With just over two months left till a new international climate change agreement is being finalised in Paris, the Montpellier Panel is launching a new report today, “The Farms of Change: African Smallholders Responding to an Uncertain Climate Future”, which addresses some of the key challenges to climate-proof Africa’s smallholder farmers. As we all know, […] Continue Reading
Why African agriculture should be a hot topic for investment
Climate change remains one of the biggest threats to transforming Africa from a continent of poverty to prosperity. Africa’s attractiveness for investors has been on the rise, second only to Asia. Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Cote d’Ivoire are among 22 economies in sub-Saharan Africa that are expected to grow by more than five […] Continue Reading
Africa’s agriculture needs young blood
Modernising Africa’s agriculture sector to attract young people will help tackle youth unemployment and food insecurity, a report has suggested. The findings were outlined in the 2015 African Agriculture Status Report. Despite the dominance of agriculture in many economies, outdated land-tenure systems and poor access to finance deter new entrants to farming, it said. The […] Continue Reading
The global forestry challenge
‘Around 20–25% of global land is degraded, affecting 1.5 billion people’, said Ermias Betemariam, land-health scientist with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), speaking at a session on land restoration at ICRAF’s annual Science Week in Bogor, Indonesia, on 14 September 2015. ‘The world has been set many challenges to try and turn this around and […] Continue Reading